People, Places, Portraits

Karen Daly

Hounslow

I saw a poster up about the Bhangra dancing when I took my son to stay-and-play. Me and my friend thought, shall we do it for the craic? I’d been trying to tone up a bit, lose weight, and I thought, that’ll really help me: dancing, sweating it all out. We came to have a go, and we didn’t leave. We came back week in and week out. I don’t even know what I was expecting to be honest. Not a clue. The teacher would teach us some moves and we’d try and do it, and I realised I don’t know my right from my left in a hurry! It was fun, it was really really fun. I liked how all the different nationalities in the group just got on, there was no animosity between anybody. Everyone had a good laugh together, and it was lovely.

There were three taster sessions and then we did more classes every Tuesday which led to the performance in The Lyric in Hammersmith. It was a dance festival. There were lots of different dance groups. It seemed like they’d been doing it for years, so for us it was a bit nervy, but we smashed it! I’ve never done anything like that before. I’ve never been on stage before. I’ve never performed like that in front of people. It was crazy. We did the technical rehearsal and for me it didn’t go too well, I kind of forgot bits here and there, but when we did it in front of a proper audience it was spot on, absolutely spot on. I remember being so happy when I was doing it. Before I went on, I was really really nervous about it, I thought I was going to fall over, but it was really really good. I couldn’t believe it!

It was a really good thing to be involved with, really worthwhile; I would do it all over again. And I would like to try other things, from doing that – I’d like to put my hand to other things.